Wanted Subject Drives Through Checkpoint With Drugs

LaGrange Police have arrested a local man on two felony charges after he literally drove through a police checkpoint with a warrant and a bag of methamphetamine.

Early Thursday morning about 2:47 a.m., officers with the LaGrange Police Department were conducting a traffic safety checkpoint on New Franklin Road near the city limits when officers made contact with a wanted suspect.

Police didn’t initially realize the suspect, Steven Conway Crowder, was wanted, so after he showed officers his driver’s license and he didn’t appear to be impaired, they told him he was free to go.

Officers later became suspicious of Crowder and noted he seemed to be nervous during the encounter. Officers then looked him up in police records and discovered that he had an active felony arrest warrant through the Troup County Sheriff’s Office.

Officers then quickly hopped in a patrol vehicle and attempted to catch up with Crowder, who they had just released. Police then caught up with the vehicle and conducted a traffic stop on the Crowder’s Ford Escape.

Once Crowder was stopped again, they ran his license through Troup 911 and confirmed that he was wanted through the county and that the warrant was already in hand.

Troup County Sheriff’s Investigators advised that Crowder and another subject allegedly printed some factious checks in order to defraud individuals during an incident in December 2016.

Crowder was then taken into custody and searched to arrest. During the search, police found a clear plastic bag containing a white powdery substance in his right front pocket. Crowder later admitted the substance was methamphetamine.

Crowder, age 36, was arrested and transported to the Troup County Sheriff’s Office to be booked into the jail and charged with Manufacturing, Selling, or Distributing False Checks and Possession of Methamphetamine.

As of press time, Crowder is still being held to be booked into the Troup County Jail.